McCOMB — The Brookhaven Panther basketball teams won theirgames Wednesday in the opening round of the McComb Coca-ColaClassic .

The Brookhaven boys (9-7) handed Amite County a 54-36 loss whilethe BHS girls (13-4) stuffed Scotlandville (La.) 53-34.

In other action, the McComb boys whipped Pine, La. 87-41 and theMcComb girls beat Pine 78-57. The St. Helena girls beat AmiteCounty 58-49. The tournament ran behind scheduled because ofconfusion in the game times.

The Brookhaven teams play today at 3 p.m. and 4:30 against theSt. Helena, La. girls and the Pine boys.

Brookhaven 54, Amite County 36

Coach Ronald Hines’ Panthers (9-7) got 16 points fromDonaldmetric Blue in the win. Charles (Bobo) Rancifer and SimmieYarborough finished with 11 points apiece.

“Charles has a super game,” said Hines. “He had a tripledouble.” Rancifer collected 10 rebounds and 10 assists. He also had4 steals.

On the backboards, Blue had 7 rebounds and. Yarborough 6 as thePanthers took a 28-19 halftime lead.

Brookhaven 53, Scotlandville 34

The Brookhaven girls, coached by Freda Craft, got a game-high 21points from Nikki Byrd. Swayze Black fired in 11 points.

“We are finally coming together as a team,” said Craft.”Hopefully we can make a strong run in the second half of ourseason.”

On the backboards, Byrd led with 12 rebounds. Black had 5 boardsand 3 blocked shots. Whitley Shannon had 4 boards. Kayla Harrisdished out 4 assists and Monte Wilson 3.